Wednesday, February 29, 2012

The Senate is expected to vote Thursday on the so-called
Blunt Amendment which would override President Obama's contraception coverage
rule and allow any employer to refuse to cover any kind of health care service
for religious or moral reasons. The Republicans have been arguing that the amendment is just about religious
freedom and that it is unrelated to women's health.
The Amendment isn’t expected to pass but Republicans are offering it
anyway in a cynical effort to create some kind of wedge issue for the 2012
election claiming that Obama is somehow attacking Religion by support women’s
rights to a form of preventive health care that is universally recommended by the medical
community.

CB writes in response to one of my posts defending the Blunt
Amendment:

The Catholic Church is
one of the largest providers of charity in the U.S. The Church wants to
function as it always has, free of government intervention. The Blunt Amendment simply uses exact text
from the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (S. 1467), so the church can
function as it did before Obamacare. So
basically no one wants anything other than to function with the same
"Religious Liberty" as the Church always has. Did you really think
everyone who warned us about the Obamacare Mandates would just say- "Oh,
OK"- we didn't really want the "Religious Liberty" our country
was founded on anyway.

Well CB, if you are wondering why the Blunt Amendment and the Respect
for Rights of Conscience Act contain the same wording, it is because Blunt
introduced both of them. Neither one
will pass I’m happy to say.

Also, the Blunt Amendment has nothing to do with protecting
religious freedom. It is an attack on
the rights of women, an effort to allow the extreme religious right to impose
its theology on other Americans, and a not so subtle effort to destroy
Obamacare by allowing any employer to opt out of providing health insurance
coverage simply by declaring his/her “moral or religious” opposition.

The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) has posted an
excellent analysis of the problems the Blunt amendment would cause should it
pass. Among other things, if passed, the
Blunt Amendment would put CEOs between women and their doctors by making it
possible for them to deny women employees or any employees for that matter
access to health insurance coverage the CEO determined was against his “religious
beliefs” or “moral convictions.”

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, the senior senator from Maine, announced this afternoon that she WILL NOT run for re-election after 33 years in Congress. Snowe said she and her husband were both in good health but that she would be leaving the senate because she was frustrated with the "atmosphere ofpolarization and ‘my way or the highway’ ideologies has become pervasive in campaigns and in our governing institutions."

There is no word on who might run in her place or the chances a Democrat might have to take her seat. Last November, Public Policy Polling said Snowe "was expected to beat her two almost unknown possible Democratic opponents by margins of 42 and 47 points, and even well-known but less likely Democratic challengers, Rep’s Chellie Pingree and Mike Michaud, would fall by respective 17- and 19-point spreads."

Want to know why you are paying more at the pump for
gas? It has nothing to do with Obama
administration policies. It has nothing
to do, believe it or not, with an oil shortage or even the threat of one. It has to do with one thing and one thing
only. Watch this video and find
out. Then, you will know who to
blame. Clue: It is NOT Obama and it is NOT the
Democrats. Look RIGHT for the right
answer.

These results from a recent Pew Research poll show just how
important wording is when it comes to gauging public opinion.

If you ask Americans whether government regulation of
business does more harm than good, most agree.
However, if you ask Americans whether they think specific types of government
regulations should be reduced, kept the same or increased, Americans OVERWHELMINGLY
want the same or MORE government regulation, NOT LESS.

Even George Will can occasionally get it right. Here is what he had to say about the
ridiculous Republican argument that Obama is somehow responsible for higher gas
prices. Will says such a charge is just “economic
nonsense.” Watch. Enjoy.
If you can’t see the video below, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlI7nTtnt2A

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Rick Santorum has opened up a 9 point lead over Mitt Romney in a new
national Quinnipiac University poll, 35% to 26%. Gingrich is in third place with 14% and Paul
is in fourth with 11%. In a head-to-head
contest, Santorum now leads Romney by 13 points, 50% to 37%.

If there is no clear leader by the convention, Republicans
say they would prefer the convention pick New Jersey Governor Chris Christie as
their top choice (32%), followed by Sarah Palin and Jeb Bush (20% each), and
Mitch Daniels (15%).

Santorum’s comments about birth control and women in combat
apparently have not hurt him among Republican women. He continues to obtain about the same level
of support among Republican women as men.

Election Projection (EP) has updated its forecast for the
2012 election. As of February 20th,
EP projects Obama will win re-election with 332 electoral votes (270 needed to
win). Republicans will pick up seats in
the Senate with an equal division of the seats between Democrats (49 + 1
Independent who caucuses with the Democrats) and 50 Republicans. EP says Republicans will retain the House with
243 seats to 192 for the Democrats. See
the chart below and additional information at: http://www.electionprojection.com/blog/

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

For the second day in
a row, the Virginia House of Delegates has postponed a vote on the
controversial legislation that would require women seeking an abortion to have
an invasive, trans-vaginal ultrasound. After hundreds
of Virginians lined the streets around the capitol in silent
protest yesterday, the House postponed the vote until today.

But the controversy
over the legislation, and perhaps the fear that they might just be overreaching
on this one, led to another
postponement.

I want you to fully understand what the Republicans are
demanding. They want to pass a law that
if a woman and her doctor decide she needs an abortion for whatever reason she
will be forced against her will to undergo an invasive procedure. What it exactly is that procedure. Here is a graphic picture.

This law is an attack on women. Period. No woman should tolerate and no man who loves any woman should tolerate it.

He warned us long ago.
We should listen to him today.
Roosevelt warned us that Republicans would profess their commitment to
Social Security and other programs Americans love. But, said Roosevelt, we should be
careful. The grass they grow with their
professed belief in the social safety net might be just hiding a big, ugly
snake. Watch and learn below or at this
link.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Republicans love amendments, personhood amendments to define
when life begins, religious liberty amendments to prevent the evil Obama
administration from forcing employers to insure preventive care, marriage
amendments to define marriage as only between a man and a woman, and so
on. They usually argue that these
amendments are needed to protect individuals from the tyranny of the
state. Well, here is an individual
rights amendment I propose. It call it
the Womanhood Amendment. It goes like
this:

Womanhood Amendment:

Every woman resident
in the United States shall have the sole right to determine to what use her
body may be put regardless of any other law or statute to the contrary.

Now, that should be an individual rights amendment we can
all get behind.

Here is the truth:
The stimulus worked. Without it
unemployment would have reached much higher levels and we would not be in
recovery.

Rebecca Thiess at the Economic Policy Institute took at look
at the impact of the stimulus on the three-year anniversary of the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). She
notes that the U.S. economy was in major trouble in the fourth quarter of
2008. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was
declining at an annual rate of 8.9 percent.
Job losses were skyrocketing and unemployment was on its way to 12% or
higher.

In February 2009, Obama and the Democrats passed the
ARRA. At that point, things began to
change. Slowly, much too slowly for
many, the decline stopped or slowed and America began to recover. Here are the facts:

In the second quarter of 2009—the first full quarter after
the stimulus was passed—GDP declined at a much slower pace (0.7 percent), and
growth resumed in the third quarter;

Job losses slowed dramatically throughout 2009 and the
economy started adding jobs in early 2010; and

Private sector layoffs, which had peaked in Feb. 2009, began
a rapid decline and returned to pre-recession levels by early Feb. 2010.

So, what the Republicans say is not true. The stimulus worked. But, why didn’t it work better or
faster? Thiess cites an explanation Josh
Bivens offered in the form of a metaphor.

“The unemployment
rate without the Recovery Act would have reached nearly 12%, not the 9% foreseen
by the Obama administration. A good metaphor for this controversy is the
temperature in a log cabin on a cold winter’s night. Say that the weather
forecast is for the temperature to reach 30 degrees Fahrenheit. To stay warm,
you decide to burn three logs in the fireplace. You do the math (and chemistry)
and calculate that burning these three logs will generate enough heat to bring
the inside of the cabin to 50 degrees, or 20 degrees warmer than the ambient
temperature.

But the forecast is wrong—and instead temperatures
plummet to 10 degrees outside and burning the logs only results in a cabin
temperature of 30 degrees. Has log burning failed as a strategy to generate
heat? Of course not. Has your estimate of the effectiveness of log burning been
wildly wrong? Nope—it was exactly right—it added 20 degrees to the ambient
temperature. The only lesson from this one is a simple one: since the weather
turned out worse than expected, you need more logs.”

In short, the stimulus didn’t fail. It did just what it was supposed to do. The only problem with the stimulus is that
few people realized in early 2009 just how bad economic conditions were, so
when the Republicans fought to keep the stimulus under a trillion dollars (they wanted none at all), the Democrats
ultimately gave in. They accepted a smaller
stimulus believing that it would probably be enough. They agreed to put just three logs on the
fire to warm the economy. The economy
really needed six or nine. So, we didn’t
freeze to death as we might have without the stimulus logs but we didn’t get
toasty warm, fast as we had hoped. The
stimulus was enough to knock the chill off the economy. Now the extremely cold economy seems to be
warming. We will get there. The stimulus worked. It would have worked faster and better if it
had been larger. And, it probably would
have been larger accept for Republican opposition.

Friday, February 17, 2012

We have another instance in which radical Republican state
legislatures are seeking to deny women basic human rights. This time it is the Republicans who control
the Virginia state legislature.

The Republican controlled Virginia state legislature is
expected to pass and the conservative Republican governor is expected to sign a
law that will require women seeking an abortion to undergo a procedure in which a vaginal ultrasonic probe is inserted in
their body against their will in an effort to dissuade them from terminating
their pregnancies. Republicans are hailing this as "an update to the
state's existing informed consent laws using the most advanced medical
technology available."

Virginia State Representative Todd Gilbert expressed what is
obviously the viewpoint of most Republican legislators. He diminished the gravity of a woman’s
decision to have an abortion saying, "in
the vast majority of these cases, these are matters of lifestyle
convenience."

A new presidential election forecasting model developed by Yahoo
Labs economists Patrick Hummel and David Rothschild predicts that Obama will
win the election with 303 electoral votes to 235 for his Republican opponent. The model assumes:

Obama’s approval rating will stay the same between now and
mid-June,

Each of the 50 states will report personal income growth
that is average for an election year, and

Certain key indicators of state ideology will remain
unchanged this year.

The models developers note that the model’s estimate “may be
a conservative estimate for Obama, because January's
economic indicators suggest that the states are likely to experience
greater-than-average income growth in the first quarter.”

They also note that “a key finding of the model is that
economic trends—whether things are getting better or worse than they were a
month ago—are more meaningful than the level state of the economy. In other
words, whether the unemployment rate is increasing or decreasing is more
important than what the unemployment rate actually is.”

A new national poll conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner
February 11-14 for Democracy Corps and Women’s voices is loaded with BAD NEWS
for republicans. The behavior of Republicans in Congress since 2010 and on the
campaign trail appears to have significantly damaged the Republican brand in
the eyes of key voting groups—independents, seniors, and unmarried women.

Here is a sampling of the findings:

The percentage of voters identifying themselves as Democrats
is up 7% since just last November.

Half of all voters now give the Republican party a negative
rating due to a dramatic shift in the opinions of seniors and
independents. Both of these groups now view
the Republican Party negatively.

68% of voters now say they DISAPPROVE of Republicans in
Congress—a 22% jump in disapproval over the last year. The change is driven largely by a shift in
the opinions of suburban voters, seniors and independents from approval to
disapproval.

The majority of voters give Romney a NEGATIVE rating,
including independents. Less than half of Republicans now rate Romney
positively. Rick Santorum performs only
slightly better.

Obama has made significant gains among unmarried women,
younger voters and minorities, the so-called “Rising American Electorate.” This group was important in the 2008 election
but drifted away from Democrats in 2010.
They now appear to be returning to the Democratic Party driven largely
by the resurgence of support among unmarried women for Democrats. Democrats are also making significant gains
among seniors but are still having some problem with re-engaging young voters
and Hispanics at 2008 levels.

You can read more results from this poll by going to the
following links:

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Several pieces of good news about jobs and the economy have
been released in the last few days:

The number of Americans filing for initial unemployment
benefits reached its lowest level since March 2008.

The business activity index of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve
Bank jumped from 7.2 to 10.2 on a sharp increased in factory orders and
shipments. Hours worked by existing
employees increased indicating increased demand that, if sustained, should
translate into additional hiring.

Jim Awad, managing director of Zephyr Management in New York
said of the new numbers: “"Everything is stronger than expected. Barring
any unforeseen problems from Europe it appears we're in a self-sustaining cycle
of growth.”

Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors in
Holland, Pennsylvania added "The numbers add to the belief that the
economy is shifting gears. There is just no number that is giving us a whole
lot of trouble, except for consumer spending."

This set of new numbers may signal that February will be
another month of jobs gains with the possibility that the national unemployment
rate will fall under the current 8.3% rate.
Let’s hope that is the case.

The improving economy/job picture is causing real problems
for Republicans who bet the election on high unemployment and an economy in or
near a second recession. One of the
reasons we are seeing Republicans latch on to the contraception/religious
freedom controversy may be that they hope to shift the election debate away from
jobs and the economy onto what they think will be a more winnable topic—religious
freedom. Democrats must make the
argument about contraception, not religious freedom, if they are to avoid losing ground they are gaining from the positive job/economy news.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Democrat Chis McDaniel has apparently won a landslide
victory over his Republican opponent 62% to 28%. to retake an Oklahoma State House
seat lost in 2010 in a special election. Republican Rusty Farley, who had
won the traditionally Democratic seat in 2010, died unexpectedly in July of
last year setting up the special election.
McDaniel’s win is good news for Democrat hopes to take back the House in
November since it may signal that Democrats have a good chance of reclaiming
seats they lost in 2010.

Another Democrat in Oklahoma, Rep. Al McAffrey, D-Oklahoma
City, easily beat attorney Jason Reese 66.6 percent to 33.4 percent in ballots
cast during the special election to replace Democratic Oklahoma state Senate
leader Andrew Rice, who moved to Tennessee.

In Maine, Democrat Chis Johnson upset Republican Dana Down
to take what was thought to be a secure Maine Senate seat.

This string of victories for Democrats at the state level
may be a good sign for Obama and Democrats as they go into the national
elections in the fall. Stay tuned. There are signs out there that American
voters are having some buyers’ remorse about the choices they made in 2010.

Republicans say the stimulus Obama signed into law in 2009 not only didn't work, it harmed the economy. Democrats say the stimulus worked. Progressives say the stimulus worked and would have worked a lot better and faster if it had been a lot larger.

CBS News has released a new poll showing Obama with a comfortable lead over all the potential challengers. He beats Romney by 6, Santorum by 8, Paul by 11 and Newt by a whopping 18%. See table below and more about the poll at the link.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Election Projection says Obama would win re-election with 332 electoral votes
to 206 for Romney if the election were held today. (270 electoral votes are needed to win.) That gives Obama a 126 electoral vote
margin. Obama’s lead is based upon polls
showing he would carry both Virginia and Florida if the election were held
today. These are two must-win states for
Republicans if they hope to win.

Monday, February 13, 2012

A new Pew Research national poll shows Obama running strong
against Romney, Santorum and Gingrich in head-to head match ups and Santorum
now essentially tied with Romney for the Republican nomination.

Republican Race:

Results from a new Pew Research poll released today shows
Rick Santorum now tied with Romney nationally among Republicans—Santorum 30%/Romney
28% (MOE: 6%) Santorum was trailing
Romney 16% to 27% in this poll in January.

Santorum has a substantial lead over Romney among
Republicans who are: Tea Party supporters, Conservatives, 50-64 year-olds,
non-college graduates, White evangelicals and White Catholics.

Republicans in general and Tea Party supporters in
particular, say they don’t think Romney is a strong conservative and don’t think
he takes consistent positions on issues.

Obama vs. Possible
Republican Candidates

In head-to-head match-ups, Obama leads Romney by 8 points
(52% to 44%) and Santorum by 10 (53% to 43%).
He leads Gingrich by 18-57% to 39%.
In November, Obama and Romney were essentially tied—49% Obama, 47%
Romney.

Obama has improved his standing among Independents by 11
points since November. He now leads
Romney among Independents 51% to 42%. A
majority of Independents now say that Romney is inconsistent on the issues
(53%) and doesn’t understand their needs (60%).
A majority no longer say Romney is qualified to be president or honest.

The margin of error overall is 3%, 6% among Republicans and
7% among Tea Party Supporters.

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Some opponents of the HHS mandate for contraceptive coverage
have accepted Obama’s accommodation, others are still holding out. Those who still object argue that even though
religious organizations will be able to exclude contraceptive coverage in their
health insurance, they will still be paying for it since the free coverage from
insurance companies will be built into the premiums religious organizations
pay. The White House is saying that won’t
happen. Here is the explanation from a senior
administration official:

“The way this works
[right now] is, I’m a Catholic hospital, and I say I’m going to offer
insurance,” said the official. “I’m going to say, ‘Aetna, I don’t want
contraceptives covered.’ Aetna is going to look at the benefits I cover, set a
premium for the anticipated costs. Then they charge that premium, which goes
into Aetna’s reserves.”

And here’s how it
works after the compromise: “Our policy is saying that the Catholic hospital
doesn’t want to cover contraceptives, and they don’t include that in their
policy. It also says that Aetna needs to provide contraceptive services for
free to workers in the plan. Aetna sets
the premium, but it cannot be higher than it would have been without birth
control. The premium does not include contraception.”

And, in the end, that leaves Aetna with the
bill. “There is a sort of bank account, and Aetna is sucking it up…They
have a reserve fund to pay for all the things they cover,” says the official. “We’re saying, ‘This is a legitimate cost
of doing business.’ That cost is covering contraceptives, and they’re
paying for that from a reserve.”

Note two important points concerning how the compromise will
work. First, under the proposed rule, the insurance company CANNOT charge the
religious organization more than it would have been charged anyway. The cost of the contraceptive coverage CANNOT
be passed through to the religious organization through higher premiums.

Second, the insurance
company must treat the cost of covering contraceptives as a “cost of doing
business” like, for example, offering policy holders a free Wellness program to
help them lose weight, eat better and manage stress or chronic conditions like
diabetes and osteoporosis.. Like the
wellness program, the insurance company absorbs the cost because in the long
term the wellness program, or in this case covering contraceptive services,
will SAVE the insurance company money by avoiding expensive treatments they
might otherwise have to cover. In short,
long-term it is cheaper to cover people who get and stay health and/or avoid
unwanted pregnancies.

Of course, some opponents of the compromise will argue that the
whole idea of the insurance company paying for the contraceptive services from
a reserve fund as a cost of doing business is just an accounting trick and somehow
the cost will still be passed through to the religious organization. However, if you follow that logic then you
could argue that ANY insurance company that provides free contraceptive
services to ANY policy holder ANYWHERE somehow passes through the cost to the
religious organizations in some way or another.
If that were true, the only way to avoid “attacking religion” would be
to forbid insurance companies from offering free contraceptive services to
ANYONE. Of course, that would be
absurd and would violate the rights of those who want such coverage.

It is time for religious groups to accept the compromise and
shut up. Obama’s accommodation is a
reasonable compromise that respects everyone’s rights and asks the insurance
companies to provide a free service that long-term will be a net zero cost or
even save them money. We need to move
on.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Election Projection has updated its forecast of the
presidential election. As of today,
Obama would carry 27 states and win the election with 332 electoral votes. (270 electoral votes are need to win.) Romney would carry 24 states with 206
electoral votes. Obama would beat Romney
by 2.6% in the popular vote 50.5% to 47.9%.

Obama would also win in a contest against Rick Santorum and
by the same electoral vote margin—332 to 206.
However, he would do better against Santorum in the popular vote winning
by 4%.

Election Projection notes: “The bottom line remains as it was always going to be in this election.
If the GOP nominates a credible
candidate, this election will be a referendum on Obama's administration, and
that will be driven by the state of the economy. Lately we're starting to learn
two things in that regard. First, the economy is starting to look like it will
be moving forward between now and November - a good sign for Obama. And second,
Rick Santorum is starting to look like a
credible choice for the nomination - a good sign for Santorum.”

We are beginning to get reactions from Catholic and other
religious leaders who had complained about the HHS mandate for contraception
coverage concerning Obama’s compromise on the issue. Under the proposed compromise, religious
groups who object to contraception would not have to provide the coverage but
their insurer would have to reach out to the women affected to inform them that
they can obtain contraception coverage at no cost.

As we might expect, some of the most extreme opponents have
already rejected the compromise. For
example, John Garvey President, The Catholic University of America, Mary Ann
Glendon Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard University, Robert P. George McCormick
Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University, O. Carter Snead Professor of
Law, University of Notre Dame, Yuval Levin Hertog Fellow, Ethics and Public
Policy Center released a statement today which reads in part:

This so-called
“accommodation” changes nothing of moral substance and fails to remove the
assault on religious liberty and the rights of conscience which gave rise to
the controversy. It is certainly no compromise. The reason for the original bipartisan
uproar was the administration’s insistence that religious employers, be they institutions
or individuals, provide insurance that covered services they regard as gravely immoral
and unjust. Under the new rule, the government still coerces religious
institutions and individuals to purchase insurance policies that include the
very same services. It is no answer to
respond that the religious employers are not “paying” for this aspect of the
insurance coverage. For one thing, it is unrealistic to suggest that insurance
companies will not pass the costs of these additional services on to the
purchasers. More importantly, abortion-drugs, sterilizations, and
contraceptives are a necessary feature of the policy purchased by the religious
institution or believing individual. They will only be made available to those
who are insured under such policy, by virtue of the terms of the policy.

Now, if you except this logic then ANY provision of
contraception services of ANY type to ANYONE in ANY organization, religious or
not, results in religious organizations
paying for this aspect of insurance coverage since the cost of providing
these additional services would be passed along by insurance companies to its policy
holders. If that is true, the only way
avoid such so-called pass through of the cost would be for all insurance
companies, or at least those who sold policies to religious employers, to REFUSE
TO COVER CONTRACEPTION AT ALL for any policy holder regardless of religion.

Of course this whole line of reasoning is absurd for one
reason if no other. Long term the provision of free contraceptive services
drives down the cost of health insurance because it is much cheaper for insurance companies to provide women with access to contraception than to absorb the increased cost
of medical care that often results from unplanned pregnancies. The
net cost of providing women with access to free contraceptive services is either
zero or results in a reduction in premium costs assuming the savings are passed
along to policy holders.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

The United States has the dubious distinction of leading the
modern world in the percentage of workers in low wage jobs. We have gained that honor for three
reasons. First, we have systematically
destroyed unions. Second, we have
grossly underinvested in a social safety net.
Third, we set the minimum wage much too low. We can and should do better.

The Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) has released
a new report looking at wages and the workforce in 19 Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.
The following charts are from the CEPR report.

The experience of the
last few decades suggests that we have a pretty good idea of how to reduce the
size of the low-wage workforce. “Inclusive” labor-market institutions that
extend the pay, benefits, and working conditions negotiated by workers with
significant bargaining power to workers with less bargaining power appear to be
the most effective general remedy for low-wage work. The specifics can take
many forms, from extending collective bargaining agreements to cover workers
who are not themselves members of unions, to setting a minimum wage at or near
the threshold for low-wage work. Greater public social spending may be another
way to increase the “inclusiveness” of national industrial relations systems
since a generous social safety net improves the bargaining position of low-wage
workers relative to their employers. The national details aside, the available
cross-country data show a strong association between higher levels of
inclusiveness and lower levels of low-wage work.

NOTE: Republicans consistently oppose all of these actions. They fight hard to make it more difficult for unions to organize. The seek to reduce, not expand, the safety net. Finally, they always resist any effort to raise the minimum wage. At the same time, they insist on maintaining and expanding preferential tax treatment for the super rich. It you want to understand why the United States is a country of lousy paying jobs, look to the policy positions of the GOP. Then, vote for the truly DEMOCRATIC PARTY.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Virginia is a key swing state in the presidential
election. Republicans will have a hard
time beating Obama if they cannot carry Florida, Ohio and Virginia. For the first time a respected poll is
showing that Obama has gained a lead over Romney in a head-to-head matchup in
Virginia. A Quinnipiac University poll
released today has Obama leading Romney 47% to 43%. That’s well outside the
margin of error of 2.5%. In December,
Romney was leading/tied with Obama at 44% Romney to 42% Obama. What is interesting about this poll is that “Virginia voters still give the president a
slightly negative 46 - 49 percent job approval rating. They split 46 - 48
percent on whether Obama deserves a second term in the Oval Office, but that
represents a serious improvement from December when voters said 53 - 41 percent
he did not deserve four more years.”

This is more good news for Obama and more BAD news for
Republicans, particularly Romney. If
Romney cannot carry Virginia against Obama, then his entire argument for being
the nominee for Republicans comes into question.

Stay tuned. There are
a number of signs out there that Obama is gaining and that the Republicans may
end up in a cat fight that does their party real damage. And then, there is the issue of the economy
which may be slowly improving. And, the
Catholic church/Republican temper tantrum about the mandate for contraception
coverage may blow up to do damage Republicans much more than Obama. Right now, the Obama folks must be feeling
pretty good.

The Catholic Church and Republicans are pushing a lot of
lies and distortions concerning the Heath and Human Services (HHS) mandate for
non-religious employers and religious organizations engaged in non-religious businesses to provide women contraceptive coverage in employer
health insurance plans. Here are two
sites that provide the facts about current state-regulation of this issue. Please direct your Catholic and Republican
friends to these sites so that they can become better informed.

The CDD says contraceptive coverage is an important health benefit for women:

Contraceptive use in
the United States is virtually universal among women of reproductive age: 98
percent of all women who had ever had intercourse had used at least one
contraceptive method. In 2002, 90 percent had ever had a partner who used the
male condom, 82 percent had ever used the oral contraceptive pill, and 56
percent had ever had a partner who used withdrawal.

The leading method of
contraception in the United States in 2002 was the oral contraceptive pill. It
was being used by 11.6 million women 15–44 years of age; it had ever been used
by 44.5 million women 15–44 years of age. The second leading method was female
sterilization, used by 10.3 million women. The pill and female sterilization
have been the two leading methods in the United States since 1982.

The Kaiser Family
Foundation says most women want and need coverage and depend upon employer-based coverage:

Insurance coverage of oral contraceptives has received
greater attention in recent years. Nearly 59 million women in the U.S. are of
“reproductive age,” between 16 and 44 years old1. The majority of these women
are at risk for unintended pregnancy and use some form of contraception.
Employer-based coverage is the primary form of health insurance for 64% of women
of reproductive age, but a sizable minority of women lack coverage for
contraceptives.

More than half of all
states currently require employers and insurance providers to provide coverage of approved contraceptive drugs and devices.

28 states require insurers that cover prescription drugs to
provide coverage of the full range of FDA-approved contraceptive drugs and
devices. The Guttmacher Institute
provides a summary of state provisions here: http://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_ICC

The Catholic
Church/Republican charges are NOT SUPPORTED by facts of the HHS mandate

Here is a summary of the facts about the mandate from HHS as
compiled by TruthOut:

Under the Affordable Care Act, employers and private insurance
providers will be required to provide reproductive preventative services,
including birth control and other contraceptives, to women who choose to use
them. The services are free of charge at the point of service and provided
without co-pays, deductibles and cost-shares.

Nonprofit organizations that "primarily" exist to spread
their religious values and primarily serve and employ people who share those
values are exempt from the rule. This means that churches and houses of worship
are exempt, but religiously affiliated schools and hospitals that serve and
employ people of different faiths are not exempt.

Officials said that some parochial schools could qualify for the
exemption if they exist to teach religion and primarily serve and employ fellow
believers.

The rule applies only with private health insurance and does not
require individual practitioners to provide contraceptive.

Most women use contraceptives in their lifetime, including 98 percent
of Catholic women. (Meanwhile, 100 percent of Catholic bishops are men.) The
average woman uses contraceptives for 30 years of her life at a cost of $30 to
$50 per month.

The policy does not cover drugs that cause abortion, such as RU-486.

Twenty-eight states already require contraceptive coverage. North
Carolina, New York and California have identical religious exemption standards
and other states have no exemptions at all.

There is no list of specific institutions that are exempt but
institutions must meet the above requirements. There is no application for the
exemption, and an institution must use the requirements to evaluate itself and
then notify its insurance provider that it is exempt.

Administration officials said they are working with states on enforcing
the rule.

After taking public comments, the administration decided to give some
religious nonprofits, including those that employ people of other faiths, one
year to comply with the rule.

The only reason we are having this debate is that most Americans depend upon their employer for access to affordable health insurance coverage. If we had a single-payer universal health insurance system, like Medicare for all, then there would be no issue.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

By now you have probably heard a bunch of garbage from the
right and religious groups AND Mitt about how the Obama administration is
attacking religion, the Catholic church, etc. etc. etc. because Health and
Human Services says if you take federal dollars, unless you are in the religion
business, you must include access to contraception as part of your health
insurance offering. It’s all very
sensible and ISN’t an attack on anyone’s religion, particularly Catholics.

Facts are most Catholic women use contraception and most
Catholics, like most Americans regardless of religion or non-religion SUPPORT
requiring employers to provide their employees with the OPTION of choosing
health care plans that cover contraception or birth control at NO COST. Here are the results of a February 2012
survey. Most Americans SUPPORT such
coverage. Catholics actually SUPPORT
such coverage in GREATER NUMBERS than most Americans and those unaffiliated
with any religion. The only group
opposed are WHITE EVANGELICALS, the same nuts that want to ban teaching
evolution, keep gays from marrying, require all kids to recite the Lords Prayer
in public schools even if their parents aren’t Christian, etc. etc.

This isn’t about an attack on religion. It’s an orchestrated ATTACK on Obama. It’s politics, nothing else.

Don’t believe him. Romney
reveals with this talking point just how out-of-touch he is with the real
world, the world in which an American President must operate today. The world has changed. Romney doesn’t get it. That’s why he is unqualified to lead.

Friday, February 3, 2012

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today that unemployment
dropped to 8.3%, continuing a five-month trend of improving job numbers. This slow but steady improvement in jobs is very GOOD news for Democrats and Obama and BAD news for Romney and the Republicans. It is going to be very hard for Republicans to run on jobs if the unemployment rate keeps trending down.

The table below summarizes other data from the most recent jobs report or go to the link for more.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Gallup says its own measure of unemployment in January rose
slightly to 8.6% from 8.5% in December.
However, when Gallup measured at mid-January, unemployment was down to
8.3%. Gallup’smid-month reading normally provides a pretty good estimate of the
government's unadjusted unemployment rate for the month.

Is it possible we might see a report for January showing
unemployment down to 8.3%? Maybe. Then again, the feds have revised how the measure
unemployment beginning with the January numbers so the previous relationship
between Gallup’s mid-month numbers and government numbers may no longer hold.

Most analysts think the official unemployment numbers will
stay the same for January at 8.5%. But,
if they tip down again that would be very good news for Obama and the
Democrats.

There are a couple of additional signs pointing toward a
further decline in unemployment in January.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Even after Romney’s convincing victory in Florida where he
met, if not succeeded expectations, Gingrich has vowed to stay in the
race. However, as David Hawkings at CQ Roll
Call says, Newt’s prospects for scoring some victories over the next few weeks
aren’t great.

But where does
Gingrich go to try to stage his third big comeback of the campaign, with 46
states to go? Not the Nevada caucuses on Saturday, which Romney has in hand
thanks to the organizational help of fellow Mormons. Not Tuesday’s caucuses in
Colorado and Minnesota, where he’s done minimal work. Not Missouri’s
non-binding primary, where Rick Santorum is making a significant push. Not
Maine, where Ron Paul has reason to hope for an actual caucus win. Not the
primaries four Tuesdays from now in Arizona (where John McCain has Romney’s
back) or Michigan (where Romney is still a favorite son). It won't be Virginia,
where he's not even the ballot. The best answer is probably Texas — assuming
Rick Perry follows through with his promise to do whatever he can to help
Gingrich reap as many of the 155 delegates as possible. But that’s not until
April 3.

So, Newt may be able to round up enough money to stay in the
race for awhile but it looks like Romney is going to remain securely in the
lead for some time to come. No wonder
Romney is already pivoting to focus on Obama and Obama is beginning to strike
out a Mitt.